It's been almost two years since the project Casa de Luta Saarbrücken started. A dream of years, an idea that was in my head for a long long time, always there, but I never saw the time to make it come true. An idea that never disappeared from my mind even through circumstances in life that I would never have wished to be, but perhaps without them, I would never have decided to dive headlong into it, because the comfort zone no longer existed.
A moment in my life where everything seemed lost, and where no light or way out was possible. I think that's what made me react in those days...
When you have what you need to live (work, house, money...), you feel satisfied, you feel that it is enough, and do not consider at any time to leave everything and take the risk of doing something that might change your life for the better, that makes you feel happy. I think that today society is more concerned with the economy or material goods than with happiness as a human being.
From having everything to losing it completely. I believe having to restart from zero was the point what made me take more seriously the idea of do what my heart ask for and not just keep it as a dream.
Of course, I had to make decisions that were not pleasant, like leaving everything, family and country, and going on an adventure that I was not sure how I was going to get out of. Everything could go well or go worse, that's all there was to it.
Constancy, hard work and never giving up was my daily routine. I'm not going to lie, there were hundreds of times when I thought, it's over, I can't do it anymore, but there was always a new reason to grab hold of and keep moving forward. Good friends, and surrounding myself with positive people helped a lot in my journey, and in regaining that motivation and self-esteem that I seemed to have lost during a long time of darkness.
Sometimes everything around you can be beautiful and illuminated, but your mind can blind you and turn it all into a dark and scary place. I needed time to understand that, and I don't want to lie, I'm still working on it today; the mind can be a beautiful as well as a scary place, it can give you the best moments of your life or destroy you completely. Thank God, I found very good people to lean on and to cleanse my soul with, people who always trusted me and didn't hesitate to help me in any way they could.
After years of hard work, I started my journey towards my dream by teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at Carlson Gracie Germany, and when everything seemed to be solved, the world pandemic appeared and I was fired as a trainer due to financial problems at the gym. And that was the precise moment when I decided together with my students and partner, to take the step and use this time of world break to work on the Casa de Luta project.
Instead of staying at home feeling sorry for the situation, I decided to focus on finding solutions to problems, and use that valuable free time in something useful.
The first thing was to find a place! A place where I can continue training with my students. And asking, a good friend of mine and training partner from the beginning in Germany, offered me a temporary room, which he had to store old junk on the condition that we empty it and clean it completely.
Second thing, the mats! So as usual in the Jiu Jitsu community, there is always someone with mats at home, so each one of those who had mats decided to bring a couple of them until we created a small multicolored area where we could train.
We were there for a couple of months, while the search for an affordable place where we could settle continued without rest. In the end that day came, and we found an old-school advertisement on a piece of paper hanging on the wall. The visit took more than on month, an endless wait, since there were many people interested in that same place.
It was COVID times and businesses were still suffering, so the changes of premises for cheaper ones were quite frequent. The luck we had, that's what we assume... It was that the place was quite old and needed to be renovated, so if you were not a handyman and could not do it on your own, those interested were not going to want to invest in hand work in times of crisis without knowing if the situation was going to improve in the future. So the place was ours!
Therefore, years of experience working from a very young age in different construction sectors were of great help with the renovation and labor savings of our beloved and long-awaited new place. It seems as if destiny was already written, as if each stage of my life had been written for this very moment. Learn each of the professions, which over the years would be useful to build my dream. I believe that everything in life happens for a reason, and everything we learn, even if it is not to your liking, will be useful in the present or future, so thank life for what it teaches you, and learn everything you can.
Once the place was renovated, it was time to think about the next most important thing, the mats!
In Jiu Jitsu, the good thing we have is that we don't need too much equipment to train, but the price of the mats is quite high, which is why there are people who decide not to open a gym due to the high investment costs. And we, not being millionaires, lower-middle-class people, had a similar problem, so we decided to try and use my social networks as a way to find brands interested in working with us. Curious, because it worked, something that I started doing with my students for fun, and that people finally liked making the number of followers grow uncontrollably, becoming something super positive and great help when it came to equipping Casa de Luta Saarbrücken. And all this without ever having thought, making videos just for fun and entertainment.
From here you can see with your eyes what happened. Casa de Luta Saarbrücken has continued to grow successfully to this day. Even getting to hire our students as coaches, they are of great help in the growth of Casa de Luta and quality of learning of our students. Casa de Luta Saarbrücken has become not only the place to make my dream come true, but also the place where each of our students can leave with a big smile on their faces and make their dreams come true. If I did it, they can too!
Thanks for the help and support! Always in our hearts! We do not forget!
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